Tony

Say it ain't so that they let Tim Tebow go!

by Tony Russell,posted Apr 29 2013 11:14AM

Well we all saw it coming, the Jets released Tm Tebow today. This after trading for him and then sitting him on the bench for a year. I for one hope another team picks him up, but at the time of writing this he is still on the sidelines. His critics say he isn't a great quarterback, but they all agree that he is an incredible athlete. So why not let him play another position? I honestly don't know much about the inner workings of football, but it just seems Tebow should be somewhere doing something!

On Monday the Jets cut Tebow with no pomp, a victim of circumstance. They acknowledged an experiment gone awry with a news release that said, simply, “Jets waive QB Tim Tebow.” There was no mention in that release of Tebow’s statistics with the team, perhaps in part because there were none worth mentioning.

He was more afterthought than asset, more distraction than revelation, a decoy who played a greater role on special teams than behind center. As the Jets’ season unraveled, Tebow, frustrated and misled, emerged as a symbol of the franchise’s recklessness in assembling the roster: for two draft picks and $2.53 million – roughly $1.5 million of which is still owed to Denver – the Jets acquired a cross-cultural phenomenon who played only 77 offensive snaps, rushed 32 times for 102 yards and completed 6 of 8 passes. He did not score a touchdown.

Almost all of the organization’s principals, including the owner Woody Johnson, the former general manager Mike Tannenbaum, Coach Rex Ryan and the deposed offensive coordinator Tony Sparano, played a role in one of the more misguided and myopic moves in franchise history. Tebow joined the Jets on March 21, 2012, as a flawed quarterback at the zenith of his brief N.F.L. career, two months after leading the Denver Broncos to several late victories and an overtime playoff win against Pittsburgh. His arrival spawned many a breathless proclamation, none of which were fulfilled.

Instead of managing the situation so that Tebow, 25, would have an opportunity to evolve into a major contributor, as he had predicted, Ryan watched it devolve into a fiasco, with members of the organization feeling empowered to criticize Tebow anonymously.

Tannenbaum vowed that Tebow would make the Jets’ offense “diverse, more dynamic” and “more difficult for opposing teams to defend,” when instead he made it more predictable – as in, Tebow, on his rare snaps at quarterback, would only run up the middle. That was the domain of Sparano, whose familiarity with the wildcat formation and read-option obscured a lack of imagination and creativity that doomed the Jets’ offense. Johnson would later say that he was only joking when he noted that “you can never have enough Tebow,” but his words loomed over the team all season, especially when the Jets had no Tebow at all.

Tebow, to a degree, is not exempt from culpability. It was he, after all, who chose to accept the trade to the Jets rather than play for Jacksonville, where he was reared. But Tebow could not have predicted what awaited him in New York. The former special-teams coordinator Mike Westhoff, in a memorable radio interview after the season, called the Jets’ mishandling of Tebow “a mess, it was an absolute mess.”

Ever the diplomat, Tebow rarely showed his emotions publicly. He handled questions about the awkward predicament with Mark Sanchez, the starting quarterback, as deftly as the attention he received for being an outspoken Christian. Only toward the end of the season, when he was passed over when Ryan benched Sanchez in favor of the third-stringer Greg McElroy, did Tebow offer a glimpse of the frustration that had been long simmering. He knew then that a departure was inevitable, regardless of Johnson’s claim from October that Tebow would be with the Jets for all three years of his contract. And it was made all the more obvious Friday when the Jets drafted Geno Smith, raising the number of quarterbacks on their roster to six. With a potentially uncomfortable situation in the looming end of the Sanchez era, the Jets finally parted ways with Tebow.

“We have a great deal of respect for Tim Tebow,” Ryan said in a statement. “Unfortunately, things did not work out the way we all had hoped. Tim is an extremely hard worker, evident by the shape he came back in this off-season. We wish him the best moving forward.”

Tebow’s next destination is a topic of intrigue. The Jets showed foresight in wanting to maximize his versatility, by lining him up at tight end, in the slot and at running back, but all Tebow wants is to play quarterback in the N.F.L. If he is unwilling to consider a full-time position switch – and there is no telling whether that would be a prudent move – his options may be limited. No teams were interested when the Jets tried to trade Tebow, who must now clear waivers. Teams have until 4 p.m. Tuesday to register a claim for the most famous backup quarterback in the league.